Pindah Rumah Moving Houses

Moving your stuff

Yes Pindah Rumah. I think most of us here in Malaysia, sooner or later will experience the need to move houses. Not sure if you enjoy it, but to me it's stressful and back-breaking.

And the options for moving houses generally are broken into a few approaches:

1. DIY - use your own vehicle (or borrow someone's) and do your own moving likely a few trips, and get your friends to help as well.
2. Hire a basic lorry but you (and your friends or family) do most o the moving, loading, unloading, unwrapping and so on. 
3. Hire a professional moving company to help do it all. Yes, they wrap, package, box it up, load into the lorry, off-load at destination, then unwrap and unbox. 

We've moved a couple of times, and this time around we decided to go for option 3 - getting full fledged movers as to minimize stress and back-ache. Yes, moving yourself is tough, and bad for your back especially if you don't practice good posture.

And this is when I realized there isn't really much info, review or sharings on choosing movers. To sum it up, mostly we are looking for - firstly movers that are professional, will not pull a sour face when doing their job and do it completely, do not damage your possessions and price is right.

I scouted around mostly reading reviews / comments on Lowyat and also asking friends. Below are the movers I requested for an RFQ (Request for Proposal). I was clear on my needs especially that I want door to door and was very specific on the movers doing ALL the works and providing all the wrapping stuff and boxes.

My case was also a little unique as I wanted a 'return trip' move, i.e swap things between 2 states.

Here's the assessment based on my first correspondence (via email or phone). When I sent my email query - I attached as much details (in a word file) of the items I wanted to move - item names, pictures and dimensions if possible. Yes best is to ask them to come to your house to see, however since I wanted to do a pre-qualification and didn't want ALL the moving companies to come one by one, I sent the details via email.

• R7movers - no reply from my email.
• Pindah.com.my - no reply to my email 
•  CMM (Pro) Movers -  prompt and fast reply. Overall pricing was good also. I can't recall now why they didn't move to my stage 2 of qualification / vendor selection...hmmm.
• Myrelo - quick and prompt reply but was little costly for me. I think their price shot up for the 'return' trip.
• Kam Transport - this company was not google-able, and was introduced to it by another mover (that does more of commercial) moving. His rate was mid range not the cheapest, but close to the cheapest.
• Kajara Movers http://kajaramovers.com.my/ - This was one of the companies with the best rates. 
• Subalipack http://subalipack.net/about/subalipack_int.html - Seemed very professional but were little expensive for this move.

Lori sudah sampai - this is how large a 3 tonne lorry is

So based on the pricing I got, there were 2 main contenders - Kajara Movers and Kam Transport. First reason was pricing. I finally decided on Kam Transport mainly because I was introduced to the owner and dealt directly with him. He sounded professional and I was a little more comfortable since if later I have issues with his worker - I can call the boss directly. Also he was very flexible on my needs as I wanted a return trip, so they come pick up few days earlier, deliver to destination one and return trip deliver on different dayswith no storage chargers. This really made it easy for my, so I didn't need to hurry and scurry, reducing the stress level significantly.

 Overall the stuff was wrapped very nicely, they were not stingy (kedekut) on the wrapping material and bubble wrap.

One of the 3 workers, seemed rather knowledge-able and was able to install and uninstall our washing maching and gas stove quite well, and was responsive when we highlighted some concerns.  

Some pointers / notes.

• If you are not moving too many stuff, maybe a 1 tonne lorry might suffice - let the mover assess. 
• Some movers only have maybe say a 3 tonne lorry so won't quote / suggest a 1 tonne lorry and vis-versa. 
• Most apartments might not allow anything larger then 3 tonne lorry. 
• Be very specific that you want the movers to do ALL the works. Remember to tell them to allocate extra boxes / wraps for things you might notice last minute. 
• Don't pay full.  I paid 50% first during pick up, and remaining 50% during final delivery. 
• Suggest to tip the movers IF they are responsive and meet your needs. 

 Here are some of the contacts for movers. I'm not putting email as bots might fish them. If you want emails, please leave a message and your email address, will email you directly.
Contacts by order of recommendation:

1. Din from Kam Transport 012-2987810
2. Kajara Movers: 03:41085626
3. CMM Movers (google) and Subalipack : Farid 019-3815017

Good luck. Hopefully my review of moving houses in Malaysia, pindah rumah comes in useful.